


The Clusterfuck of Epic Proportions

by potted_music



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:38:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potted_music/pseuds/potted_music
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill of the prompt "Can I get something slow and sweet about young Harry and Merlin getting together? Lots of pining, worrying that the other one is not gay/not interested, possibly being repressed about being gay themselves as well, and them becoming very good close friends before one of them finally makes a move?" from Dressing Room 3: A Kingsman Kink Meme.</p><p>In which Harry believes himself to be irresistible, Merlin's patience is tried, and good clean fun is had by all (especially, one assumes, by their respective therapists).</p><p>Caveat lector: English is not my first language, and this is unbetaed. Here be monsters.</p><p> </p><p>[Courtesy of Natsu, now you can also read the fic in Chinese: http://harumidori.lofter.com/post/3b4c29_659b3c2 ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"The proper term for the present situation would be, I believe, 'a clusterfuck,'" intones Harry into the mic, crouching to reload his gun behind an overturned fruit stall smack in the middle of Jemaa el-Fnaa. A huge watermelon bursts into bright pink splatters at a direct hit, just inches away from his head. In a grainy video feed, for a second Merlin cannot tell if he's staring at fruit pulp or blood, but Galahad is obviously unperturbed, so he finally lets out a breath and keeps scanning the crowd. This is his first job as a field handler, and it's going tits-up fast.

"By the hotel entrance, a group of three..."

Harry quickly leans out from behind the stall and picks off one of them.

"A group of two," amends Merlin. "Good job."

"I'm here to please."

"Sniper on the hotel rooftop, left corner," barks Merlin as the metal frame of the stall shudders at the bullet hit. "Okay, he's reloading. One one thousand- two one thousand-"

Harry makes for the hotel entrance. There's little he can do about the sniper, but he manages to shoot one of the remaining two guards by the door before Merlin commands him to duck again.

"Did you see it?" he hoots into the mic. "James Bond has nothing on me."

"James Bond did not have me," smirks Merlin. There's a swirl in the sand not two inches from Harry's Oxford-clad foot where the bullet hit the ground. "Go!"

"Don't worry," says Harry before taking another run. "None of this is your fault."

Merlin swears under his breath. He hoped he had his voice under control, but the punk somehow realized just how on edge he was. He'll have to edit this bit out of the footage he'll submit to Arthur after Galahad is safely back home. He fidgets with the controls, switching to the feeds from the cameras inside the hotel.

"All clear, other than a snake charmer with an AK and a rather impressive cobra on the stairs right below the third floor."

"Is there an elevator?" asks Harry, and he sounds much less cocky than he did under sniper fire.

"No, why?"

"I'm afraid of snakes. Too phallic. Maybe I'm too busy repressing my homosexual leanings to deal with snakes?"

Merlin takes a quick look at the floor plans.

"No elevator, and there's a group of twelve nice chaps with AKs approaching the hotel from the north. Go."

Galahad must be standing under the hotel awning, because he's off Merlin's feeds for now.

"They'll be here in about ninety seconds. Go."

A pause. Merlin wonders if the feed froze, because there's still no movement in the hallway.

"I cannot." Galahad's voice sounds clipped and suddenly all too young. Merlin swears under his breath, covering the mic with his palm for good measure. Then, taking a deep breath, he puts on his professional tone.

"One step at a time, Galahad. Breathe. Check your gun. Open the door."

There's another pause. Merlin squints at the feeds from side streets. The attackers are moving faster than he thought, but he's reluctant to push Galahad too hard just yet. Finally, Galahad steps through the door into the hotel hallway. His shoulders are sagging pathetically.

"Breathe in, Galahad. Well, are you?" Merlin asks, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Am I what?" Galahad asks distractedly, but that's still much better than the raw panic in his voice from earlier. He is taking cautious steps towards the stairs.

"Too busy repressing your homosexual leanings."

"Oh-" Galahad chuckles. "Never."

He's almost at the bottom of the stairs now. The attackers are flooding into the square in front of the hotel.

"Run," says Merlin. "Run run run-"

Much to his surprise, Galahad obeys. Readiness to obey takes him past the first flight of stairs, but that's when he must hear the hissing of the snake. 

"You can do it. I saw your marksmanship scores, you can shoot it," pleads Merlin, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper.

Galahad reaches into the inner pocket and grabs a lighter. "I'm sorry."

"No!" shouts Merlin, but his voice is drowned out by the explosion. The screen blinks and goes to static.

He slams his fist into the table, desperately listening in to the sounds transmitted from Galahad's mic. There's crumbling concrete and distant shooting in the background, but the only noise that he desperately wants to hear - the breathing, the scrabbling of familiar footsteps - is not there. To drown out the rising panic, he says coldly:

"You knocked out my cameras. You are on your own now."

He is rewarded with an already familiar chuckle.

"I knew you valued your precious electronics over my peace of mind."

"Well, I pay for them, and I don't pay your therapist. Are you alright?" Merlin barely stops himself from laughing out loud with relief.

"The suit's a mess. Other than that- fuck, you could have told me that the damn thing was six feet long! I could have been reaching the airport by now!"

Galahad laughs nervously and unpersuasively.

"Nevermind, it's dead now. Breathe in. Walk on."

For a while, there are no sounds, but finally the footsteps pick up again. There's the scraping of the door, and then a triumphant shout. Galahad got the files he was sent for.

It takes him a while to navigate his way past the incoming reinforcements of the mafia ring now desperately requiring renovations at its HQ, but he finally gets out. He promised to pick up Merlin's cameras on the way out, and it's another two minutes before he reaches the first safe one in the side street. Instead of just picking it up quickly, Galahad pauses and tilts his face at the camera, as if he can see the man behind it.

"Are you new here?" he asks. "I'm Galahad. I mean, that you already know. You can call me Harry. I owe you one."

"I'm Merlin," says Merlin, and pinches the bridge of his nose. He cannot help smiling back at that crooked grin.

A clusterfuck indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

When they meet in person for the first time, Harry is slightly hungover after having disposed of half the bar on the jet back, and horribly unimpressed. He is headed to the medical unit for the post-mission check-up - he's fine, except that the ringing in his left ear has not subsided over his flight home - when a door slams open and a tall lanky beanstalk of a guy, adorned with the kind of greenish tan one gets from taking lengthy vacations in computer labs, steps out and blocks his way.

"I'm Merlin. Hi. Anything else you are afraid of?"

His palm is cold and clammy; the handshake, although firm, lasts not a second too long, and Merlin immediately hugs himself tightly, sticking his palms under the armpits. It takes him about as long as it takes Harry to realize just how defensive the pose looks, and he straightens up, leaning against the doorframe in a semblance of nonchalance. He is smiling like he has a shard of glass under his tongue, brittle and vulnerable and so eager to be liked. Nobody has a right to smile like that and not be hurt, Harry concludes, and hisses,

"Incompetence, for a start."

They've assigned him a damned rookie. The guy _was_ new, not just new to the London office or new to the job, but generally mint-new, younger than Harry, who tended to view all the young 'uns with a mixture of irritation and benevolent condescension from his vantage point of the ripe old age of twenty five. And, don't get him wrong, he is not usually that kind of person, but he is crashing hard after the earlier adrenaline rush, and the guy needs to be taught a lesson, not about anything in particular, but a lesson in manners, if you will, in respecting the privacy of others. In conclusion, yes, maybe, just maybe he did not _need_ to be rude, but it felt so good at the time that it was most worth it.

Harry's phobia goes on his file, and he's still bitter over that fact and the hours of sessions he's put through; so does his new light concussion. Merlin, for all he cares, goes to hell. For the next couple of missions - light recon ones for when he's still nursing the concussion, the kind of intel gathering you can do over a glass of champagne in a nice art gallery, or over various horizontal objects with the gallery owner, art theft and white collar crime, that sort if thing - he is assigned either Nimue, with whom he shamelessly flirts, or old Kay, with whom he does not.

It's been over a month; Nimue and him, waiting for the extraction, are scooped up in this nice trattoria on the outskirts of Venice, where Nim's pink-tinged dreadlocks attract all the stares. After one prosecco too many, light and bubbly and suddenly full of regret, he asks, "There was this guy- about this tall-ish, messy hair, pasty, goes by Merlin?"

"Merlin is mah baaaby," slurs Nimue, clutching her beer glass to her more than impessive bosom. And then, suddenly turning dead serious, "Bright as a button, sharp as a box of really sharp things. I'm bequething you to him after I retire, so whatever's your deal with him, cut it. Merlin's a good kid."

Harry orders another glass.

"A good kid? Is that it? We are not in the business of being good, I need ruthless and deadly, like you."

"The way to a woman's heart," she croons, pinching his cheeks in a mocking gesture that, Harry knows, masks real affection.

"Besides, isn't your retirement some fifty years off?" he presses on. "Come on, in all likelihood, you'll be bringing flowers to my neat little grave."

She reaches into her purse and slaps a creased letter on the table in front of them. Having quickly scanned it, he whistles.

"You traitor. You sly fox."

She folds the letter back up too carefully to avoid looking at Harry.

"Fact of the matter is, you do not turn down postgraduate opportunities at Oxford. And, much as I love present company and comprehensive health insurance, let's face it: Kingsman is a nightmare job straight from the ninth circle of hell, with zero concept of overtime because you are always on call, surrounded by psychotic coworkers and the bosses who are too snobbish for their own good."

"If his incompetence gets me killed, my death's on you. Congrats."

And there's just about equal amount of bitterness and joy for her in his voice.

"So, I'm handing you over to Merlin. Anything that should make me reconsider that decision that is not public knowledge?"

She's good, he thinks with a sinking feeling. So damn good. What is he going to do without her? He shakes his head. "Nothing whatsoever."


	3. Chapter 3

"You wouldn't fucking believe what the cat just brought in," he chuckles into his collar, turning the card over and over in his hands. "We've got an in."

"What does it say? Come on!" Merlin is limited to just one vantage point, a camera concealed in Harry's bulky glasses, and, for all Harry knows, Merlin does not have a reading knowledge of Hungarian.

Harry's on a mission in this mansion on one of the smaller islands of Budapest that looks like a living exhibition of the myth of the Golden Age of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. There are real honest-to-God white peacocks prawling the grounds, and tortoises with their shells encrusted with gold and precious stones. Had the mansion wanted to be any more decadent, it would have had to feature vampires, courtesans with advanced stages of tuberculosis and starving artists dying of syphilis, not necessarily in that order. The owner of the mansion, one count Karácsony, just happens to be the intermediary smuggling arms from the Soviets to Nicaragua, and Harry would very much like to get his hands on the count's ledgers to establish the remaining links in the chain. He scans the card again; it is lightly perfumed. 

"Well, for starters, there's this bit about my arse, except it wouldn't be as funny in English as it is in Hungarian. All our meticulous research and my barber's bills are finally paying off. He invited me to his, as he put it here, humble chambers of love upstairs."

He raises his gaze to count Karácsony, who is talking to an international arms dealer of some reknown at the opposite side of the room, and smiles his most seductive smile. Nodding curtly, Harry heads for the toilets.

There's a momentary silence on the other end of the line, and then Merlin cautiously says, "You don't have to. I mean, if you don't want to."

"What do you mean 'you don't have to'? Of course I'm going up!"

Harry carefully places an extra bug next to the urinals just in case - men's rooms are always a good place for overhearing the latest gossip. Merlin meanwhile breaks into a flurry of frantic motion.

"Be careful. Prep. Lube. Lots of lube. I'm truly sorry, I cannot cut off the feed entirely, I really cannot, but I can look the other way unless you say the word, let me think, unless you say _chéri-_ Of course, we will be most discreet with post-processing the records-"

Harry suppresses a smile at Merlin's rendition of the French _r_ , which in his brogue becomes almost Slavic, rumbling and rolled.

"Would you like to watch?" asks Harry in a low rasping voice. "Would you like to watch me spread my legs, open up for count whatshisface, thrash on his thick dick stretching me to the point..."

Harry dabs his fingers in water and musses his hair up a bit. Truly, he is a sight to behold, he acknowledges contentedly, giving his reflection in the mirror a once-over and a quick high five. With great beauty comes great responsibility, but someone has to do it.

"We can get you out in about three minutes." The words are followed by rapid typing, and Harry hopes Merlin is not sending helicopters or surface-to-surface missiles just yet. He heaves a sigh. There goes his solemn parting promise to Nimue not to stir up any trouble. 

"Merlin, chéri, calm the fuck down, will you. We need an in to his private chambers, but not that sort of in, if you know what I mean. I get in, I stun him with the magic amnesia shocker of awesomeness, I get the documents, you get me out, end of story."

On the other side of the connection, Merlin groans.

"Did I fuck up?"

Harry, suddenly elated, grins and winks at his reflection, knowing that the image is transmitted back to the dank dim office.

"Let's be honest here, any hot-blooded mortal would be tempted. I don't blame you. Mind you, I will keep bringing it up until your dying day, but I don't exactly blame you."

"I did fuck up."

"Maybe a little bit."

The mission itself is a brisk business, Harry thinks smugly while carefully depositing the count's insentient body in a chair. He owes the man this small courtesy. He is, after all, a bit flattered.

Following Merlin's curt instructions, he breaks into the safe and, having sealed the documents in a watertight folder, stuffs them under his shirt. After that, it's just a matter of waiting to make his cover seem plausible.

Before exiting the room, he tousles his hair and unfastens the topmost three buttons of the shirt. He winks at the guard poised at the end of the corridor and revels in his grimace. He saunters down with languor, making a show of licking his lips, and picks up a glass of champagne from the nearest table. For all the pretense of the mansion, the drinks are actually not that good. Once he decides that his departure won't be taken for a suspiciously hasty exit, he makes for the terrace overlooking the river. He's almost at the railings when barked orders in Hungarian reach him. Someone must have checked Karácsony's office.

"Well, shit," he says and jumps. "A gentleman should always say his goodbies, unless it suits him to do otherwise."

"The helicopters are two minutes away, will you risk it?" rasps Merlin.

He runs for the river.

"Merlin, this is where I part with my shirt." Kicking off his shoes, Harry walks into the muddy waters of the Danube. "The blue Danube, my ass. Oh, and if you do want some footage of me and the sexy times, don't be shy, there was that mission with the daughter of the Prime Minister of Iceland. Feel free to ask Nim. See you on the other side!"

He drops his shirt in the water so that nobody would be able to track the transmission back to their office and starts swimming across the moon glade, chasing off reflected falling stars.


	4. Chapter 4

Of course, it goes down in history as that one mission on which his coordinator did his absolute damndest best to pimp his arse out to a shady arms dealer with a truly questionable taste in interior decoration. And if the story acquires more and more salacious details in retelling, so what? Harry is of the firm belief that pesky facts should never stand in the way of the higher verisimilitude.

And after that, Merlin promptly makes himself sparse. If any overly ambitious villains are trying to bring about the untimely yet spectacular Apocalypse, they must be out of Harry's jurisdiction. Each morning he looks into his mailbox hoping for a non-descript envelope with new mission details, but all he gets are pizza flyers and escort services brochures. He tries to enjoy the lull, taking long walks with Mr Pickles and intimidating the new recruits at the gym, but he quickly grows stir-crazy. Two weeks pass, then three. And still, no sign of Merlin. Occassionally he believes that he sees the familiar lanky figure at the gardens or in the canteen, but Merlin, if it was indeed him, has perfected his disappearing act to the level of fine art.

Eventually Harry despairs and corners Gawaine, the agent closest to him in age, in the gardens, where the man has taken to, as he puts it, communing with nature and watching the pebbles grow. Harry clears his throat to break his reverie - if there's one thing that Kingsman training teaches you, it's never to catch another agent unawares, unless you don't really care about ending the conversation with the same basic set of limbs you started it with.

"Hey, Gawaine, you know Merlin, the one who tried to-"

"-pimp your arse out, yeah. You know, this _is_ getting old."

Harry makes a grand gesture.

"It will never get old, the way _Casablanca_ will never get old. It was a beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Gawaine groans, tilting his face up to catch more of the watery March sunshine.

"He's my handler too, you know. So, you were saying-"

"Right." Harry bumps his shoulder to make him scoot over and sits down next to him. "What's he like?"

"A regular bloke?" Gawaine shrugs. "We had a couple of beers the other night. Boring, yet decent. Or is it decent, yet boring?"

Harry cannot imagine going out for beers with Merlin. At the thought, something spiteful curls in his chest.

"But still, as a handler-"

"He's a decent bloke," insists Gawaine. "Calm, composed, a little bit too much like an automaton for my liking, but you know you can trust him. I've no idea what your little feud is all about, and I honestly don't want to get involved, so if you could please just-"

Gawaine waves his hand in a dismissive jesture.

"There's no feud," mouthes Harry distractedly, standing up. Automaton would be about the last word he'd use to describe Merlin, right up there with 'calm' and 'composed'. Short of calling Nimue, there's not much he can do. An investigation is in order.

Another thing they teach you in Kingsman training, right along with not catching another agent unawares, is to never bug your fellows' rooms unless you don't mind coming up several digits short. Harry treasures his fingers, which have on occassion been compared to those of a virtuoso pianist, and so he decides to take the brazen approach. He nicks the key card to Merlin's office off Arthur, which might be actionable, but it's not like the man will hold a grudge against his only nephew, and invites himself in.

Merlin is glued to his sundry assortment of screens showing what seems like a crowded mall from several perspectives. Without looking around, he waves at whomever it was that he was expecting, and says, "Just leave them on the table. I will sign the forms later."

Not believing his luck, Harry grunts noncommitally and slams the door, and then freezes, trying to blend in with the surroundings.

Despite the flickering images in front of him, Merlin seems entirely relaxed, slouched comfortably in his chair, with the sleeves of his slightly too big sweater falling well past his wrists. There's a growing collection of mugs in front of him, but he's not exhibiting any of the caffeine overdose jitters that Harry has come to associate with Kay. 

Adjusting his mic minutely, he calmly notes, "Guinevere, there are three more coming up from the parking lot. Mordred, back to base, if you please."

Mesmerized, Harry watches. Flashes of movement and distant sounds blur into a ballet with human lives poised precariously in imperfect balance. From his stillness and silence, Merlin orchestrates it all, moving his tiny army of knights spun from legends and pop culture references. Led by his calm voice, they march back to life as kingdoms crumble and burn. Blood does not reach him, and neither does fire, not into the greenish underwater light and dancing shadows he strides in. Harry does not recognize this person from the bumbling rookie he thought he knew.

Finally the movement dies down. Merlin nods. "Guinevere, Mordred, it was an honour." He disconnects and spins around in his swivel chair, and, for the briefest moment, Harry catches a glimpse of his work face, the face of someone who outwitted death for a while. But then Merlin notices him, and his expression melts into a familiar lopsided grin. He adjusts his crooked glasses and breathes out a short "Oh."

Harry's breath catches in his throat.

"It's you," says Merlin with a whiff of disappointment. 

"The one and only."

He waits for a reply for a bit, but none comes. So he decides to just plow through. That strategy had never failed him so far, except that he finds himself, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words.

"It's just, you are never around, and I'm not assigned any new missions. So I thought- well, I thought I'd ask. We're good, right?"

Merlin takes off his glasses and stares into mid-distance with a vacant smile.

"Other than the part where you proudly stood up in front of Arthur and the full Round Table and proclaimed for all to hear that I tried to pimp out your arse," drawls Merlin. "Internal investigation was fun. The grueling session of reviewing the anti-fraternization rules was a hoot. Yeah, other than that, we are good. Positively peachy."

"Wait, they made you do what?" Harry gasps. "But we are not-"

"That's what I told them. That's not what you made it sound like. Apparently, they take protecting your maidenly virtue seriously. Sleep safe with that knowledge."

Harry cannot help laughing at the absurdity of it all.

"Oh please, as if I had a shred of virtue left. I'm thoroughly de-virtued. Debauchery is my middle name. So's lechery."

He is rewarded with a dry chuckle. "So I assumed."

"I can go talk to them. Arthur will listen to me."

"Oh please, because that would not make the whole dismal situation look worse. You might be offered another handler, but I hope they'll soon rest content that I am not going to jump your bones."

"As if I couldn't kill you with my cufflinks if you did."

"As if I would ever stoop so low."

Somehow, Harry thinks, this conversation took an entirely wrong turn.

"Yeah, right, but we are good," Harry says, trying not to sound pleading.

Merlin thinks for a while, and then nods almost imperceptibly. Harry will have to make do with that.

The door knob already clutched in his hand, Harry turns back and catches his gaze.

"But you do know that I wouldn't want any other handler, right?"


	5. Chapter 5

As anyone would tell you, extraction missions are the worst. The gallery at the Kingsman headquarters, much to the gratitude of their court painters, is greatly augmented by the portraits of those who tried, and failed. At the bottom of it, Harry knows, the Kingsmen deal in death, the perversely inexorable justice that cannot, for one reason or the other, be doled out through official means. Death is their coin, all the saved lives are purely incindental. Caring whether someone lives or dies is a liability.

Arthur subscribes to the venerable school of fighting fire with fire, and, once the internal investigation is wrapped up and sealed, summons Merlin and Harry to his office and hands them the files.

"Right, because we are just that brilliant," says Harry with a fist pump after he is done rifling through the pages.

Merlin just nods, more in acknowledgment of the task at hand than in gratitude.

The Kingsmen have no regular presence in Uganda, and not much to go on by way of local contacts. There are a few sleepers back from the colonial days, but they are few, far between, and, Harry suspects, have enough on their plates as it is. Nimue sends them the phone number of her third cousin the taxi driver, the tech hand them accreditation documents of a BBC crew, and that's about it.

"If we are going down, at least we are going down with style and panache," says Harry contentedly, hefting a machine gun cunningly disguised as a camera.

"Nobody's going down on my watch," murmurs Merlin distractedly, checking his assortment of bugs and wires for one last time.

"It's because of lines like this that you are not getting any," smirks Harry, and at that, the doors of their jet lock with a satisfying click. They are off, they are in over their heads, and Harry finds it absolutely exhilarating.

In the sixth year of the Bush War, the fighting seemed to be dying down a bit, except that Magnus Schmidt, a nice young man of Danish extraction with way too much knowledge of chemical weaponry, promised to help his girlfriend get her family out of the country. As these things go, the situation went from bad to worse to code orange international emergency as he fell into the hands of one breakaway rebel group who now had a decent chance of sprucing their arsenal up with some choicy neuro-paralytics. With little to go on other than the blurry satellite shots of the compound he was held in and the desperate hope that any rebel in possession of a good arsenal must be in want of a war correspondent to vent his views at, the mission was bound to be fun.

Nimue's third cousin Paul, who agreed to be their local fixer, picks them up at a tiny private airport next to Kampala. He hugs each of them as if they were long-lost relatives too, and hands them a bundle of Polaroid shots of assorted nephews and nieces, as well as a bag of weird-shaped eggplants to pass to Nimue.

"I never knew Hope worked on TV," says Paul with a grin, and it takes Harry a moment to realize whom he's talking about. To him, Nimue was only ever Nim. She lived the title with gusto, and he accepted it unconditionally, although he himself stuck to Harry. After all, it was Harry who was at stake, it was Harry who could die while Galahad would live on through the bodies of countless other young men occupying the position.

"She's our best editor," Merlin chimes in, slinging his heavy bag over his shoulder. He is obviously nonplussed by the heat, nor by the proximity of danger which keeps Harry manically grinning at the edge of his seat.

To keep up the cover, Harry takes panoramic shots out of the car window, the green canopy, a heady mixture of several architectural styles. They pass the first roadblock soon after they exit the city. Harry is itching for a fight, but Merlin stills him by putting a hand on his shoulder and palms off several fivers to the rebels in mish-mash camo eaten through by the ever-present red dust which makes men look like golems rising up from legends.

"Nice young men you've got here," Harry huffs at Paul once they start moving again, but the man just shrugs and gives him a wan half-smile. The ongoing fighting must have made him reluctant to divulge his views.

They park a mile away from the compound: not much of a walk, and a slightly higher chance of a successful escape should they retreat in haste than if they parked in the driveway. As they walk to the compound, Harry hums _The Flight of the Valkyries_ through his blocked nose.

"Wait, are you crying?" Merlin asks, suddenly turning on him.

Harry rubs at his eyes, which only makes the itching worse, and shakes his head.

"Allergies. One hell of a choice between taking the meds and getting killed because of the grogginess, or ruining my reputation by getting snot all over myself. Honestly, one of these days I'll just toss a coin."

After another turn of the road, they are finally regaled with the view of the compound. It used to be a rather nice three-story villa with green window shutters, now chipped, and a terraced roof; but it has recently had several traumatic run-ins with what must have been grenade launchers, and now looked like a slightly obscene cross between _House & Garden_ and _Apocalypse Now_.

"So, there's our outhouse," whispers Merlin, pointing to the building to the right of the villa. "According to the original plans, it has a passage that leads to the river bank some three hundred yards from here, that's how they used to bring in provisions. The plans seemed structurally sound, so that's probably our best exit strategy, even though you might have to do some digging."

" _We_ might have to."

"No, that's _you_ , singular," scowls Merlin. "You dig, I tell you where to dig, don't forget that you are the brawn here."

Harry smiles winsomely, waving at the guards at the compound gates. They have finally been noticed, and the greeting committee is busy making itself look intimidating.

"And here I was, thinking that you only keep me around because of my pretty face," he puffs, half-turning to Merlin.

Merlin rolls his eyes in exasperation.

"Will you ever stop with the jibes of vaguely sexual nature?" 

"That 'vaguely' is offensive! No, probably not," admits Harry, "not when they rile you up so."

Their paperwork passes muster. At a quick count, there are twelve guards at the gates, and, at Harry's educated guess, these are glorified cannon fodder at best - nobody who's actually dangerous would ever waste his time making such a show of being intimidating. There are several makeshift barracks deeper in the overgrown garden, but that's not Harry's problem for now either: Merlin is to take a position at the villa's rooftop to hold up anybody who's suicidal enough to volunteer as reinforcements.

Joseph the rebel leader, who meets them with open arms, is actually nice, Harry concludes, or at least nice for someone who is actively condoning the military use of children to the tune of general allegations of torture, cannibalism and genocidal plans. He gives them the tour of the mansion, taking obvious pride in its frayed curtains, faded herringbone wallpaper and grand bathes on lion legs. Merlin is rushing around with a thermographic camera masked as a light meter, and quickly signs: second floor, four guards. Harry nods.

He can talk anybody into anything, or so he believes: he talked Arthur into bringing him in as his candidate, he talked arms dealers into invitations of a more personal nature, and he even talked Nimue into a drinking game once, an occasion which he remembers with shame and affection, for she drank him straight under the table. Of course, he can entertain the warlord for fifteen minutes or so it would take Merlin to reach the roof and fortify his positions there.

"It will be more of a human interest story," he says with his most charming smile, chuckling at the mental image of the villa with its heavily armed inhabitants on the spread in _House & Garden_. "You know, human sympathy trumps politics, or at least for us it does. Your average Joe knows little about the situation here, so he needs to be told what games you played as a kid, what you have for breakfast here, so that he'll look up and think, golly, what good guys they are, I'd have a drink with them, they are just like me and you. Pictures of you feeding kittens are a plus for his missus, of course."

Harry talks and talks and talks, never giving Joseph an in to ask questions or doubt where the other camera man went; he talks, all the while listening to Merlin's progress through his earpiece. He has no reason to be worried about Merlin, that much he knows, but he still feels inordinate amount of pride at his non-flashy efficiency ("knocked out the two on the stairs, they are fine, but they won't exactly dance tango anytime soon- passed the third floor while they were looking the other way- not much of a lock at the entrance to the terrace"). When Merlin sighs contentedly and says "I'm on position. Go," Harry doesn't need to be asked twice.

"Thought you'd never ask," he says as he stands up and shoots Joseph in the head. Action time mode takes over.

"Gents, could you point me to men's room?" he asks the guards in the corridor, and, while one turns around to show him the way, he electrocutes his mate and shoots the more helpful one.

On the stairs, he carefully steps over Merlin's handiwork, and, taking a deep breath, pushes the door to the second floor. Later, he would keep poring over all the details, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when everything went wrong. Did someone see something through the window? Did they miss someone cooped up in one of the side rooms? There's nothing. Sometimes missions just go wrong for no good reason whatsoever. There was no sense of foreboding, no obvious alarms, and he just floated on adrenaline and the pure joy of being alive, of being the more skillful at this game of killing.

Stepping over the bodies of the guards that are still pumping blood on the floor, he takes pride in knocking down the door to the room where the hostage is supposedly held.

"Magnus Schmidt?" he says, poking at the tied and gagged form on the floor with his shoe. The man nods frantically and tries to shout something through the dirty gag stuffed into his mouth.

"Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming to breakfast," Harry says in his best American accent. The performance is slightly marred by the fact that his allergies are picking up, and he has to wipe his nose about midway through, but nothing can spoil a line that good. Nobody appreciates classical movies like he does.

Having quickly untied Magnus, he pushes him towards the exit at gunpoint. He doesn't want any hanky-panky with the Stockholm syndrome and PTSD attacks, which often make even the most thought-out extraction missions, which this one decidedly was not, go tits-up.

"Right, chéri, got the present, exiting through the south doors, all clear?"

"You talking to me?" Magnus winces.

Harry shakes his head and points first at the mic in his collar, then upwards, where, he knows, Merlin is perched at his vantage point like a particularly surly gargoyle.

"Some movement to the north, but south's good, just make it quick," commands Merlin.

Harry passes several deeply unpleasant moments in the outhouse, where he cannot find the entrance to the tunnel at first, but eventually he discovers it behind the pile of old broken furniture. Gesturing with his gun, he invites Magnus to go first.

There's a dank underground smell there, worms and rotting foliage and a hint of excrement. "Tunnel's clear, if distasteful, so make a move," he whispers into the mic.

"Thank you, that was most amusing," comes through the connection. "Listen, we are booked in Hotel Pearl on William Street under Hyde and Jekyll. There are extra IDs in my bag on the backseat."

“I hope I’m Jekyll,” Harry laughs, and Merlin answers, “You wish.”

At a certain point the tunnel is almost blocked with crumbling bricks, and Harry has to squeeze through, wincing at the touch of slimy walls. Being a field agent is supposed to cure one of any vestigial squeamishness, but Harry's of the firm belief that a gentleman is entitled to little quirks when it comes to the matters of personal hygiene.

The earpiece crackles. "Harry, listen, I-"

In hindsight, Harry thinks, he should have realized that something was wrong right there and then, from the momentary hesitation in Merlin's voice, from a strained smile he could hear through his words. But that is also the moment when they turn a corner and he finally sees the sunshine. The tunnel was indeed structurally sound enough. They got out. Killing his flashlight, he rushes for the exit.

"Hallelujah, the blessed sunshine! See you at the car, and the moment we reach the safe house, I'm sucking your soul out through your dick," Harry hoots, and then quickly adds, "In the most noncommittal, non-fraternizing way possible. As one does."

Merlin has a knack for making his silence sound indignant. Harry smiles at slightly dismayed Magnus and starts wiping the specks of dust and cobwebs off his constume, smiling at Merlin's scathing silence.

"Oh come on, you can reciprocate," he huffs testily. Still, no answer.

"You sound really weird, talking to yourself like that," Magnus chimes in unhelpfully.

"Shut up," Harry barks just to let off steam. Of course, it is all Magnus's fault, this whole mission is. He already knows that the answer will not come, not now, not in a minute, but he still whispers, "Merlin, please."

The line is dead.

"Right," he says, trying to compose his racing thoughts. He's good at improvising, and, without false modesty, he's the best agent of his generation, but strategies and overall plans are not in his job description. He'll just have to wing it, he decides, and scowls at Magnus through a surge of relief that comes with decisions made.

"We were paid to get you out, but whether you will have any teeth left by the end of the day is completely irrelevant. So, if you don't want to spend the next year at the dentist's, run."

They race to the car at the best speed one can afford in the low undergrowth, which is not much of a speed at all, thinks Harry frantically, not when the seconds of separation are building up. Merlin must have had rigorous field training, all handlers do, but he was no field agent himself. For him, this was not yet second nature reaching deeper than rational thought, the way it was for Harry and others on field duties. However, what he lacked in instinct he could make up for with that brain of his, with the knack for seeing the larger picture and fitting the chaos of battle into a precise jigsaw puzzle. All's well, repeats Harry over and over, for how else can it go?

"Where's the nice one? Who's-" asks Paul when he sees them approach, and then promptly shuts up when Harry reloads his machine gun and pulls a tactical vest over his head.

"So, Hope does not work on TV," says Paul, and then makes a zipping motion in front of his lips. "Seen nothing, heard nothing."

"No, she does not," says Harry, dumping more ammo into his pockets. Maybe he should have lied, but he is horrified and dismayed, and he sees absolutely no reason not to make others suffer with him.

He walks back to the mansion along the side of the road. He's not hiding, not exactly, since the element of surprise is not really an option anymore, but he's not giving them an easy time at shooting him either.

The closer he comes, the clearer the gunshots become. When he finally reaches the last stretch of the road, the whole courtyard is teeming with human figures. There are too many of them. He does not see anything on the roof, but that's because the flames breaking out of the third floor windows obscure the view. He breaks into a jog.

Of course, Harry realizes belatedly, running through everything that was said - the too careful instructions on the exit procedures, the weird gratitude of _that was most amusing_ \- of course, _of course_ the dumb cunt knew there wasn't a way to get him out, and he just cut the line and let them leave. Just like that. If he finds the bastard alive, he will kill him with his own bare hands.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I waste too much time staring at this gif.

Unless "Chaos. Mayhem. Death" counts as a plan, Harry does not have one. In the gathering dusk, it is hard to gauge how strong the opponent is, except that Harry can see without counting that there are too many soldiers. Any handler in his right mind would have aborted the mission and pulled him out right there and then, but that was the problem, wasn't it? If he wanted someone to talk sense, he had to get his handler out of there first. Had Merlin not decided to be a drama queen of epic proportions and left the connection in place, they would at least have been able to coordinate their actions. But no, that would have been way too easy.

Harry takes stock of his options, slowly circling the outer perimeter of the courtyard. Unless he thins out the crowd around the villa, they don't stand a chance in hell. Harry's good, but that's what they teach you: it does not matter if you are much better than any individual opponent, in a melee big enough you will go down. Unless, Harry thinks with a grin, the enemy believes that there's more than one of you, and spreads out to catch you. Damn, he's good.

He starts with a bang by throwing the lighter grenade into the throng by the villa's porch. Without wasting a second to look back and admire his handiwork, he rushes to the side, and shoots a spurt low into the crowd. He is circling the courtyard at little more than a crouch, shooting at irregular intervals. In no time, the bullets are flying back and forth. He did not underestimate the opponent one bit: apparently, their training, such as it was, did not include the pesky notion that shooting in a dense crowd of your cohorts is somewhat counterproductive.

Under the cover of the low-hanging acacia branches, he climbs to the flat roof of the outhouse to survey the lay of the land. The crowd's chaotic enough to make escape probable if not altogether tenable; all that's left is to find Merlin, and Harry doesn't like the look of the fire raging on the upper floors of the villa one bit. He throws a grenade as far into the crowd as he can and prepares to jump down when the world explodes into pain.

On the plus side, it was, to judge by the lack of troops swarming in to make sure that he was indeed dead, a stray bullet, shot at random. Harry goes down without a sound.

For a moment, he believes it all over, angry at the stupid fucker who got him and at his body for letting him down so. His blood spreading around him in an oily puddle is uncomfortably hot; he almost cries at the unfairness of it. That is when the connection crackles back into life.

"Harry, please tell me that you are back at the car."

"Right back at you," he hisses through gnashed teeth. Looking at the stars above him, he runs a calmer evaluation of his symptoms. The pain is sharp, blinding, yet it does not reach deeper. He's bleeding like a pig, he most definitely has cracked ribs, but there's no bloody foam on his lips which makes him reasonably sure that at least his lungs are intact.

When he reaches for a blood-clotting gauze and slaps it onto the wound, every movement hurts. "Where are you? I'm coming for you."

"Rooftop," says Merlin through a really nasty-sounding cough, "there seemed little point in going anywhere else."

Harry closes his eyes; even through his eyelids, he can see the blazing fires. Opening his eyes takes an effort, which means that blood loss is finally catching up to him. To give himself an excuse to lie still for a moment longer while blood-clotting substance takes, and not to pass out in the meantime, he starts talking.

"Please don't pull a Mr Rochester on me. I'm afraid I cannot keep loving you if you are blind and short an arm, that would encourage others to give me ridiculous nicknames. I never felt like a Jane. Do I look like a Jane to you?"

Had these been his last words, he thinks shakily, he would be somewhat proud. On the other side, Merlin either laughs or coughs.

Harry starts scrambling to his feet, but realizes it's not a good idea.

"Right, please listen to me for once," he says, rifling through his pockets. "I'm getting a shot of painkillers and stimulants right now. As to my judgement beyond that point, your guess is as good as mine. Choose the side that has the least troops on it, tell me where to go, and jump. Now."

"It's a thirty foot drop."

"And, floating on adrenaline as I am, I find men on crutches horribly sexy."

He waits for the pain to subside, welcoming the sudden blurring of perception that usually horrified him. As he's about ready to throw a grenade and make his exit, there's a roaring behind him. Part of the roof caves in. Harry's not even trying to speak anymore. He presses his fingertips to his eyelids, but at least now he can move his arms without feeling like his lungs are trying to make a grand exit through his shoulder blades.

"The outhouse side," Merlin says thinly, coughing yet definitely alive.

"Right, I'll be there for you."

Merlin lands first, without causing too much of a commotion. Harry guns down those that do notice him, shooting with both arms straight out. He belatedly realizes that a quiet fall of one body definitely attracts less attention than quite a lot of shooting, but he needs to get to Merlin first, he just needs to, and for a moment the throng does scatter. That suffices.

He grabs Merlin by the collar and drags him to the fountain, where they crouch behind the statue of Neptune and his retinue.

"I think I sprained my ankle," Merlin grunts, but Harry is too blissfully aware of the warm presence of his body pressed to his side to come up with a retort. "And we cannot take the tunnel back, they'll just explode it on us."

Harry thinks dimly: so, this is where it ends. At least the scenery's pretty. "Then we'll just have to leg it," he says reloading. 

He stands up and starts to shoot; Merlin leans heavily on his shoulder, covering their backs, and Harry's really grateful for the painkillers. From the way Merlin is not trying to hide either, Harry surmises that his handler's appraisal of the situation roughly matches his own. Serves him right for playing the dumb self-sacrificial trick.

They take turns reloading and even manage to make some progress towards the gates, but Harry's ammo-loaded tactical vest is getting lighter by the minute. He drops the useless machine gun and fishes out another grenade. The explosion is satisfyingly bright and loud.

"Save one for us, will you?" shouts Merlin through the ringing in his ears. Shaking his head, Harry grabs his arm.

Beyond the smoke screen, the shooting gets louder. Something's happening.

Once the smoke clears a bit, Harry sees a beat-up red Ford Anglia roar into the yard, blinking its round headlights. Paul leans out of the driver's window with an exasperated expression and an assault rifle of someone who's deeply fed up with the countless deficiencies of the universe.

"Get in!" he shouts, shooting at the crowd.

"Well, here's your fiery steed, I believe," says Harry, and starts laughing hysterically.

As they are racing away towards safety, turning into the most beat-up dirt roads and occassionally taking shortcuts through plain grassy stretches, Harry winks at Paul in the mirror. "So, not a taxi driver either."

Paul chuckles.

"If you don't tell Hope, I won't tell her I know about her occupation."

Harry nods. Fair's fair. After all, Nimue was getting her badass genes from somewhere, and that 'somewhere,' apparently, meant Grandma Patience, who had the most misleading name ever.

That's when his stimulant-painkiller cocktail starts wearing off, and he suddenly feels so very tired. He sags against Merlin for a nap.

"Don't you dare," Merlin hisses, "don't you dare check out on me. Or ever do anything this stupid."

"Pot calling kettle," he mumbles blurrily, "Good tech wizards are more expensive to train, so I heard. They would have flayed me alive if they heard I've lost you, so I thought, well, worst-case scenario, I save them the trouble."

At that, he does pass out; at least, everything from that moment in the car till a point in flight somewhere over Libya is a painful blur. He bats off Merlin who offers him more painkillers; he is too jittery for that loss of control. When they reach the Mediterranean coast, it is Merlin's turn to dose off.

Staring into the window at the Mediterranean below, Harry finally puts it into words. With cold exhilarating painkiller clarity that brooks no half-measures, he rolls the phrase on his tongue: he is in love with his socially stunted handler who goes into comical hyperventilating panic attacks at the mere suspicion that gay sex might happen. This cannot be good, but there's clotted blood under his fingernails, his whole body hurts, and the men he killed are still unburied on the ground, farther and farther away from him with each passing minute, so his notion of good is pretty adjustable.


	7. Chapter 7

If there ever was a workshop for young Kingsman agents on bluffing their way through their post-mission psych eval, and there absolutely should be one, because nobody that Harry knows of tells the truth in those sessions anyways as a matter of principle, Harry should have been teaching it. He perfected it to the level of fine art. He deserved an Olympic medal in it. Maybe he even deserved the Nobel prize.

He sails through the usual part easily. Feigning concern, he pretends that he actually takes time to think the questions over. No, none of his battles are replaying in his dreams. Yes, he has hobbies, human connections and a support network outside Kingsman. No, he has no trouble falling asleep. Nimue trained him well for this sort of scenario. He is rather certain that Chris the therapist is on to his game, but he signs him off and lets him back out into the field, which is all he needs.

However, his hopes for a speedy release crumble to dust as Chris catches his gaze with a look that he must think piercing, but Harry considers mildly constipative.

"Let's talk about your handler."

"The one who tried to pimp my arse out?" Harry wants to add, but does not. Instead, he just nods. "Yes, sure."

"You make quite a lot of sexually suggestive propositions to him."

Harry weighs his options; really, this is a no-brainer.

"Yes, because it makes his mask slip. In the field, we, the agents, are granted precious little agency of our own. Our actions are defined by the assigned task and the handler's commands. My sexually suggestive propositions dismay him, and it makes me feel like I am regaining a measure of control."

He gives himself a mental high five: the answer hits a perfect balance between insouciance and just the right amount of vulnerability to make it sound believable, yet non-threatening. Chris makes some notes and asks without looking up, "And you do not feel like that undermines his control over the overall scheme of the operation."

"I submit when it comes to important things," and he cannot stop himself from opening his mouth wider and licking his lips.

"Transference is a very real phenomenon," Chris drawls, unamused. "A handler and an agent share a bond quite like no other."

"I thought they said that about therapists." Harry stretches out his leg so that their feet are almost touching, and stifles a yawn.

Chris scowls at him. He's bad, Harry thinks. Had he really needed help, Chris would be about the last person he would turn to.

"Your handler acts through you, you are his arms and eyes. He protects you. You protect him. This can get intense, and since none of you muscle are exactly known for introspection, these feelings are pretty easy to confuse with- feelings of another kind. Some start treating their handlers like they would their parents. Some develop feelings of a completely different nature. To a certain degree, this is unavoidable, which is why we try to switch handlers around every once in a while. It is completely natural, there's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Oh please, have you even met the guy?" Harry laughs nonchalantly through a surge of discomfort. If they know you want something bad enough, they will take it away, and Harry's complete and utter devotion to the organization operating on that principle does sound messed up when put like that, Harry would readily admit, but truth of the matter is, he knows precious little else. The qualities that make him an excellent Kingsman agent disqualify him from participation in society, and his marketable skills are limited to his present trade. When trying to think back to his life before Kingsman, he finds little there that is of use. He was good at Latin once. Saving the world trumps conjugating irregular Latin verbs any day of the week.

Treading on thin ice, Harry tries to project Gawaine's benevolent reserve, dredging up his words from memory. 

"Merlin's a good bloke. Decent, yet boring. Or is it boring, yet decent? We work well together, I think. Although his conspicuous lack of a sense of humour is trying at times, I'll grant you that."

Chris slips the form to him across the table. It says that agent Galahad is cleared for field work after his physical rehabilitation is complete. Harry rolls his eyes: he'd known actively suicidal agents who still got their field clearance renewed. Idly, he wonders how Merlin's conversation with his therapist went. On the one hand, it's little more than a formality, and Nimue surely must have grilled him for all eventualities, but on the other, he seemed like an honest type who would fuck everything up by telling the truth.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry's plan of seduction is not that different from his usual behaviour. When pressed, he would even admit that it is no different from his usual behaviour at all, but that is just because he always operates on the unspoken assumption that those who know what's good for them want him, or will come to, eventually.

As the Round Table gathers to celebrate the life of Sir Ector, recently deceased, Harry, one of the few knights present in meatsuit rather than as a hologram, purrs "Merlin, light of my life, fire of my loins" in theatrical whisper. Merlin looks decidedly more greenish than usual, and, once he pulls up the slides, Harry understands why. He never wondered what the remains of someone who was torn apart by four cars would look like, and now that he's granted that unsolicited information, his desire not to know becomes ever more emphatic.

His PT is taking longer than he hoped, so Harry has few reasons to see Merlin these days. He is, however, slightly discomfited by Merlin's hasty departure after the Round Table disperses. As he contemplates whether he should address the new recruits as his minions or his disciples, he hears a polite cough.

Uncharacteristically, Gawaine hovers over him in silence for a while, and, when Harry's about to poke at him and command to spill it, his friend asks, "Is Merlin alright?"

"Why wouldn't he be?" huffs Harry.

Gawaine shrugs. "Ector was lost on his watch."

That never came up in the tribute nor in the briefing. Of course, Harry knew intellectually that there must have been someone on the other end of the line, watching and unable to help, but it was not the kind of knowledge he gave much thought to. He scowls.

"Ector was a suicidal loose cannon who lied and cajoled to be let back onto the field when he shouldn't have been. You knew that as well as I did."

Gawaine sits down next to him with a sigh.

"Yes, but we only know that because we both have the scars to show for it. Merlin is good and will probably one day be horrifyingly brilliant, which often makes us forget that he is still new. He did not know. Last we talked, he was falling apart, in his own quiet unobtrusive way."

On a day to day basis, Harry has absolutely no problem with not being the kind of person others reach out to in times of trouble. Gawaine is, but he does not have one tenth of Harry's charm, so, all things considered, it is a fair trade-off. All in all, being the nice one seems like too much of a hassle, but for once, just this once Harry wishes that he had been Merlin's first choice. His mouth is parched with this lost want, scorching, unbidden.

"Why would you think I'd know if he wasn't alright?" asks Harry, because he is a field agent and he's used to hurt and he anticipates the pain.

Gawaine, however, is a kinder man than he is. He just shrugs it off. "Dunno, just on the off-hand chance."

At times like that, people deserve all the good things they can get, and by the good things Harry mostly means his own awesome self. So he packs his meagre earthly possessions and moves them into Merlin's office while Merlin's away on a short recon mission in Oslo with Gawaine. At least Merlin has the presence of mind to lie and get back into the field, Harry thinks with relief, inspecting his redecoration scheme with no small degree of pride. Now the place has finally lost its desolate monastic look.

"What the fuck is this?" Merlin asks, looking around the office once he comes back. Harry is reading the latest le Carré with his feet propped up on Merlin's table.

"You should try harder to make this place look more hospitable," he says, putting down the paperback. "You are welcome."

"What. The. Fuck. Is. All. This." Merlin walks around the room, looking at the walls like one might be inclined to look at the stuffed body of one's recently deceased grandmother.

Harry springs to his feet. An explanation is in order. He starts by tapping his fingernails on the newspaper clippings above the table that he claimed for himself.

"This - 'Aliens Defiled My Body' - is the headline from the day when I prevented the terrorist attack in Belfast. Had I failed, the headlines would have been 'Explosion Wreaks Havoc at a Primary School.' 'Madonna Keyed My Car,' as opposed to 'Massive Oil Spill Spreading in the Gulf.' 'Dolphins sing _Ave Maria_ ,' as opposed to 'Man-Made Tornado Wipes Washington Off the Face of the Earth.' You get the idea."

He walks up to Merlin's paranoidally neat table lined with rows of screens, and pets the clipping he neatly put up above them.

"'Jesus Christ Appears To English Man On A Piece Of Toast'- not bad for your first clipping, right? This is from your mission with Ector. Had you failed, the front page news would have read something like 'Explosions on the Subway, 40 Confirmed Dead.' I'm blurry on figures, that's your job, but that's the gist of it. You did not fail. Here, have your Jesus on toast."

Carefully, quietly, Merlin rips off the tape holding the clipping in place, neatly folds the page in four and deposits it in the trash can. Harry's a little hurt.

"Gawaine thinks that you are worried." Gawaine did not phrase it quite like that, but Harry has enough sense not to quote him verbatim. "So I figured, why be angry at yourself when you can be angry at me? If you want to shout at someone, I'm at your service. If you punch me, I might break your arm, I'm afraid, but you can try."

He picks the clipping out of the trash can and spreads it out on his table.

"Why are you here?" asks Merlin, his voice strained.

Harry smiles his best get-out-of-jail-free smile.

"Oh, because I'm infuriating, obviously. Infuriatingly gorgeous and brilliant too, but mostly infuriating."

Merlin sags in his chair and hides his face in his palms.

"Do you want to know what it felt like?" He starts slow, but then his speech becomes a faster and faster patter, "I don't know, because I wasn't with him till the end. He peed his pants when they started tying him up. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I didn't know what to say to the man about to die a rather unpleasant death, they don't teach you that, and I just didn't know. There was no dignity to it. So I took off my headphones and went to get tea. I walked slowly. When I came back, it was all over."

He looks up at Harry searchingly, waiting for his sentence, craving one almost. Cautiously, so as not to spook him, Harry puts a hand on the nape of Merlin's neck, marveling at the feel of bones under soft hair and warm skin, the most vulnerable spot, so easy to crush. Merlin is defenseless and fragile, and Harry cannot breathe through that realization, and cannot stop touching him.

"Don't worry," he finally says, his fingers ghosting over the base of Merlin's skull, "you'll do better next time. I'm sure you'll do it just fine for me."

Which is when Merlin punches him out.


	9. Chapter 9

And so it goes. Once Harry plays up the innocent suffering convalescent angle, they get on like a house on fire. Every time Merlin tries to throw out his books, his clippings or his awesome self, Harry presses an icepack to the quite impressive bruise on his jaw, or clutches at the healing wound on his ribs. Merlin’s shoulders sag guiltily, and he relents.

By the end of the first week, they settle into a routine. Merlin's usually the first to arrive in the morning, and he starts leaving a coffee on Harry's desk: black, three tablespoons of sugar, and Harry would have been even more impressed had it not been Merlin's job to know everything about him.

Harry, meanwhile, takes it upon himself to broaden his handler’s horizons with choicy innuendos. He pointedly does not hold Merlin’s obvious puritanism against the man: after all, not all are blessed to attend a public school, and some have even had the added misfortune of being born in backwater Scotland. Someone has to, acknowledges Harry charitably. Makes his responsibilities as the man of the world ever greater.

Leaning on rather than over Merlin’s shoulder, Harry says hi to Gawaine while Merlin coordinates his mission in Brazil. Gawaine positively beams, the bastard. When the new recruits start coming to Merlin’s office rather than to Harry’s when looking for Harry, he counts that as a strategic victory.

So, when the storm does hit, it comes as a complete surprise.

Harry is solving a crossword puzzle when his alarm clock beeps, reminding him that he has not said anything lewd in over two hours. Without looking up from the newspaper, he remarks, “You have such wonderful shoulders. My legs would look most becoming on them.”

Merlin stopped reacting to his comments a while back. Usually he just flinches minutely and moves on, which Harry takes for an early sign of incipient acceptance. So, Harry’s not waiting for an answer when he is regaled with an exasperated sigh and some shuffling of papers.

Merlin stands up. ”Fine. Before I submit the paperwork for the transfer- do you have any preferences about your handler?"

"About six foot two, dark hair, a truly spectacular nose which makes me cautiously optimistic in other regards, codename's Merlin," murmurs Harry without lifting his gaze from his crossword puzzle. “Hemingway title character, six letters?"

"I'm dead serious. I wouldn't hand you over to Kay, because he probably will get you killed and I'm not that kind of person, but Elyan might be a good match."

"Wait, are you breaking up with me?” Harry asks, finally putting down the newspaper.

Merlin sends him a scathing look.

"Look, I’ve had it. God knows, I tried, and I tried, and I tried, and I don't know what you've got into that thick skull of yours, but the fact that I'm gay gives you absolutely no right to keep harassing me. "

"You are gay?" Harry gasps. "That's so absolutely marvelous! I thought you were homophobic! Well, that puts quite a different spin on things.”

Merlin laughs until he’s hoarse, until there are tears in his eyes. Harry’s not sure whether he should share the mirth. ”And what led you to that particularly brilliant conclusion?”

“Why, your panic attack when count whatshisface invited me to his chambers of love and depravity, of course.”

Merlin pats him on the shoulder, like one might pat a poisonous snake. “I was worried about you. Wait, you honestly did not know?"

Harry’s all injured innocence and feverishly bright eyes. He bites his lip. “Well, you never said 'Hi, I'm Merlin, and I'm into recreational dick-sucking,’ did you?”

Merlin is scrutinizing the wall like it is the most exciting thing he has seen in ages. ”I assumed you knew. I assumed everybody knew. Nimue actually put me up with my ex, and when I broke up with him, Gawaine took me out for drinks. I assumed you knew and were making my life hell for it."

“I would have acted differently if I knew- well, maybe not. But point is, I did not know.”

"And you never paused to think why they investigated me on sexual harassment charges, but not you, despite the blatantly obvious fact that it was indeed you who said things that can be construed as unwanted sexual propositions?"

”Because I'm Arthur's nephew, for one?"

Merlin nods. ”That must have played a part. So did the fact that my dossier says that I'm gay. Yours does not."

“We are all a work in progress,” says Harry with an important air.

"Well, are you?" says Merlin, his eyebrows drawn, and when he looks Harry into the eyes, there’s a cold swirl of need and hurt and hope.

Harry takes a moment to take stock of his feelings on the matter. He has been through public school, with all that it entails, but he'd never been tempted afterwards, not until now.

"No," he says softly, after a pause, "but I wouldn't deprive half of the humankind of the joy that is me just because they have the wrong set of chromosomes. That would be discrimination.”

Merlin clutches the back of his chair so hard that his knuckles go white. Carefully enunciating each syllable, he says, "Please get out. Please."

Harry has never seen Merlin like this, not during their desperate final stand-off in Uganda, not when Merlin was telling him about an agent he lost and betrayed, and Harry's too used to obeying him, no questions asked, that he starts moving before he has time to form a coherent thought.

In the corridor, he slams his fist into the wall, because that is the kind of thing that people are supposed to do in dramatic situations, but it is not as satisfying in real life as it is movies.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha, I'm the worst at writing porn. Um, so, emo!everybody, awkward first times, I've tweaked at this enough to suspect that it's not getting any better. [Also, gosh, what will I do with all the free time that I'll get back now that it's done? The emptiness, the horror!]
> 
> Here, have a young Merlin:  
>   
> With that thought in mind:

Harry makes quick work of scaring off the recruits. While their combat training is supposed to be grueling, none of them appreciate landing in the infirmary after routine sparring practice, so they soon learn to make themselves sparse around the training grounds while he’s there.

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” says Gawaine, the one nominally in charge of the training, while Harry prowls the grounds, spoiling for a fight and making sure that the youngsters are all gone. “That’s our future cohorts.”

“One of them is, anyway,” says Harry, kicking at the speed bag. “And he’d better know what he signed up for.”

After the door closes behind the last one of them, Harry plops down cross-legged on the mats in front of Gawaine.

“We need to talk. I fucked up, and now the bastard would not so much as look at me. You wouldn't believe how good the man who tracks all your movements can be at avoiding you."

"Please shut up," Gawaine raises an open palm, "I cannot be held accountable for what I don't know."

"Except that you do know. You probably knew before I did."

Gawaine lets out a groan than can be construed as either general exasperation or broad agreement, then nods.

"I need your help."

"I'm not getting involved. He too is my friend, you know.”

Harry narrows his eyes. "Well, you'd better, because, while he might still be your friend, you owe me for Brno."

Harry expected to keep the favour for something more major, as insurance for a life or death sort of scenario, but needs must.

“You are aware of the fact that you are a deeply unpleasant human being, right?” sighs Gawaine.  
At another time, this might have stung, for Harry does like Gawaine a lot, in his own absent-minded way, but he’ll think about that later. He huffs. “Oh please, this is not like I’m asking for his head on a platter. Bring him here. Sparring practice, reviewing the recruits’ progress, whatever it takes. Let me talk to him.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Gawaine nods. “Today, 5 PM. I honestly don’t know if this is a good idea.”

Harry understands that Gawaine does not mean the ruse. He smiles bashfully. “That, my friend, makes the two of us.”

Afternoon passes in a blur. With unflinching resolve he has not felt since his first mission, he carefully presses his field bespoke suit. It saved his life at a secret bioweaponry laboratory in Alaska, in the midst of a drug ring in Monte Carlo, and at a terrorist cell in Versailles, so it will have to do.

He watches Gawaine and Merlin spar from behind the one-way mirror. Harry can see that Gawaine pulls his punches, but Merlin probably cannot, and his happy grin as he helps Gawaine to get up makes it all worth it.

After they are done, Merlin heads for the showers, and Gawaine nods at the one-way mirror, his face a somber mask. Harry’s probably not getting any more favours out of him anytime soon.

Without giving himself any time to think, he paces on and on, and finally stops in front of the only occupied shower stall.

“How ‘bout same time Friday?” asks Merlin, having heard the footsteps, but then he lifts his head and sees Harry. “Oh,” he breathes out with disappointment, and Harry wants to break something at that sound. 

Merlin states flatly, “I would honestly prefer it if you left me alone.” Without his glasses, he looks even younger.

Shifting from one foot to the other, Harry aims for nonchalant and competent, but soon settles for pathetic and desperate as his voice trembles over the very first words. “But you do want me, right? I mean, I thought a lot about this, and it all only makes sense if you want me. If I’m wrong, let’s just try to, let’s try- damn, I miss you, and we can just-”

Slowly, without looking at him, Merlin nods. His Adam’s apple bobs quickly. “I do. Badly” he says, “not that it changes much of anything.”

Harry does a fist pump of victory and hoots. “But it does! We’ll fuck up, okay, I’ll fuck up, but honestly, why are you even in this trade if you are such a stickler for common sense?”

Merlin laughs weakly. “That’s a fair point.”

Deciding that it’s enough of an invitation, Harry walks into Merlin's shower stall without taking off his suit, which, he realizes belatedly as scorching water crashes down upon him, is much sillier in reality than it seems in movies. But it is too late to back out now.

"Okay, I messed up, let us rewind this a little bit,” he says, gesturing wildly and splashing water every which way, “Day one. I'm standing in the clay labyrinths somewhere off Jemaa el-Fnaa. My suit's a mess. I'm looking into your camera. I don’t know you. Your voice makes my knees go wobbly. You can call me Harry. I owe you one."

He stretches out his hand. The silence, interrupted only by the splashing of water, grows and grows.

“Oh come on Merlin, I’m ruining my best suit here, it does not get any more serious than that,” he pleads.

"One's not going to cut it." Merlin finally says, squinting short-sightedly through the pane of water, but does not refuse the handshake.

Harry nods seriously. ”Great. And then you don't mention my little meltdown ever again. And we go and have the best whiskey money can buy."

"I prefer beer.”

Harry groans. ”Do we absolutely have to start arguing now?"

"I have a feeling that we are catching up on all the arguing we could have been doing since day one," Merlin says with a hoarse laugh.

Harry waves it off.

"Be that as it may. We have a couple of beers. And then a couple more. And then more than we should have. By the end of the evening, I lean over and kiss you senseless."

His Oxfords slip on the wet floor, and he has to catch himself against the tiled wall. Leaning forward, he gently presses his lips to Merlin’s, more of a question mark than a claim.

Merlin moves first, and it’s more of a squeeze than an embrace, an armful of a sopping wet agent in a bullet-proof suit made stiff with water pressed so tight to his chest that all air is knocked out of Harry’s lungs.

This, at least, is finally firm ground, the paths he knows, for how different can it really be? he decides, pushing Merlin against the wall and running his lips against his throat. Merlin’s soaked and slippery and does not taste like much of anything. Harry pauses for a moment, the man’s pulse racing under his lips, and bites gently at his Adam’s apple.

By that point, Merlin is sporting a rather impressive hard-on that he tries to cover with his cupped palms.

"I wouldn't be hiding that if I were you," Harry licks his lips. "Everything they said about large noses- who'd have thought. It's a national treasure, that's what it is.”

“I know how to wipe the footage from my room, but, should anybody check, this here stays on record,” he points at the camera in the upper left corner of the room. “Nobody probably would check, but I’d still move, if it’s all the same to you.”

Merlin dresses quickly; there’s not much Harry can do about his suit. As they walk across the yard towards Merlin’s room, cautiously not looking at each other, Harry, still trailing soapy water, finds himself beset by doubts. With each step, the boundless horizon of possibilities is narrowing to the meagre sliver of reality; taunting Merlin has been Harry’s preferred sport for so long now that the reality of the angular complicated man walking next to him will probably never live up to all his excellent suggestions. This is bound to make things needlessly messy. He’s harbouring no illusions as to their ability to get along.

Merlin carefully locks the door behind them. If his stiff posture is any indication, he’s no stranger to doubt either. “May I offer you anything to drink?” he asks ceremoniously, and with something akin to desperation Harry realizes that, unless he makes a move now, they will backtrack and pretend nothing ever happened, because nothing did. The prospect scares him so much more than the alternative.

Crossing the space between them, Harry cups Merlin’s face in his palms and kisses him again, this time relinquishing his mouth to the forceful press of the other’s lips. Merlin’s tongue slides, hard and insistent, past his lips, a promise. It is hotter than it has any right to be, Harry thinks frantically, trying to angle his growing erection against Merlin’s thigh, rutting pathetically, stuck in an unwieldy suit, and they tumble a bit, laughing, high on each other’s smell and touch.

“Fuck me,” Harry says into Merlin’s lips, breaking the kiss. “I assume you would have all the necessary accoutrements.”

Merlin helps him to get out of the costume - while famously stain-resistant, when wet, Kingsman bespoke suits notoriously cling to the body like second skin which allows about as much physical contact as a space suit; then, quickly dumps his own bathrobe.

Harry straightens up a bit. This is him, this is Merlin, and they are fast becoming a ‘them,’ for better or for worse.

"I've wanted you for so long," Merlin whispers into his collarbone helplessly, he is out of breath, reverent and horrified.

“You’ve also thought I was an capital-A arsehole for about as long,” chuckles Harry, “honestly, I’m getting mixed signals here.”

“Are you sure?” asks Merlin in a grave tone usually reserved for handing the recruits their bodybags at the start of the training, and Harry cannot help laughing at it.

“We are both naked, we are about to get sweaty, so, in my book, this day is a noticeable improvement as is. I have no idea how you ever get any if you are always this sour about the process.”

“Only when it matters,” Merlin flashes him the familiar lopsided grin, and pushes him onto his Kingsman issue bed.

The fingers in his arse feel uncomfortable rather than unpleasant. Harry spreads his legs wider and rolls his hips experimentally to better accommodate them, and then it hits him with breathless clarity: Merlin’s in him, making more room for himself, probing and spreading with that same clinical concentration he has when saving Harry’s life on missions. His handler, his lover, his Merlin, he thinks with angry animal need, and bucks, laying himself open. Merlin hits something inside him, something too intense to be altogether pleasant, and Harry arches off the bed, his heels scrabbling helplessly at linen, not finding footing. Merlin, the bastard, does that thing again, and Harry shouts, clasping Merlin’s shoulders so tight that there will be bruises, marking him for his own.

Harry knows that he won’t last long at this rate. He pushes Merlin onto his back, wincing at the suddenly overwhelming emptiness inside him, and straddles his hips.

“Maybe we should wait," rasps Merlin, suddenly jittery.

"No we damn well shan't," he says, and, gritting his teeth, reaches behind him and directs Merlin's dick in, rocking back sharply to sink deeper on it. Merlin clasps his thighs to hold him, but it is too late.

The pain is searing. “Famous last words,” laughs Merlin nervously into the top of his head as Harry stretches out next to him on the bed, one leg still slung over his hips, waiting for the pain to subside. His breaths make Harry ticklish.

“That was extremely ouch,” he huffs, aggrieved, cupping his softening dick. He’s a field agent and no stranger to pain; in his personal ranking, it’s probably not even a 3 out of 10, but he did not expect any, and it feels like a betrayal.

“Because you are supposed to go slow,” says Merlin without much sympathy, “Here, let me kiss it better."

Harry feels suddenly self-conscious as Merlin props his hips up on a pillow. “You’d better,” he huffs petulantly, and Merlin does.

Merlin starts with short brisk brushes over the tender skin, licking away the tension and the pain. Harry feels his muscles relax slightly, he’s getting hard again. He tenses minutely at the probing, delicate at first, then more and more insistent, but it’s Merlin with his face pressed into his arse, Merlin whom he trusts more than he trusts himself, and at that thought, Harry feels himself finally open up. He is rewarded with an appreciative slap on the buttock that sends a shiver up his spine. He feels impossibly open around the tongue pressing at him, and when he tries to clamp down, Merlin does not let him. Harry tries to wiggle away, but the pressure stays there, wet and slippery and awkward and wonderful, and he's keening into his fist, trying to hump at the pillow with short snaps of his hips.

This time, Merlin learned his lesson, and, as he turns Harry over and pulls his hips up, bending him uncomfortably at the waist, he holds him tight, not allowing him much movement. “Please,” Harry pants, “please.” 

There’s awe on Merlin’s face as he slides deeper and deeper into Harry, and his cheekbones blush in patches. Harry pulls him down into a kiss, sloppy, uncontrolled, all teeth and pushing tongues, and he can feel Merlin’s dick twitch inside him, and that is about the best feeling ever.

He reaches down and touches the place where their bodies merge, and there’s no walking back from that. Harry’s no good at feelings, but he is great at reading his life in terms of bodies: no matter what tomorrow brings, he will never be the man whose body does not know how to kill, he will never be the man whose body does not know how to yield to Merlin, while Merlin will never be the man who had not fucked him. When Harry grabs for his dick, Merlin covers his palm with his own, his rhythm is harsher than Harry would have chosen, but it does the trick. In three strokes, he is thrashing wildly, spurting all over his stomach, coming stretched over Merlin’s dick. As he clenches around him, Merlin thrusts deeper several times, off-kilter, gasping, and follows suit.

“Not bad for the first time, huh?” he asks, punching Merlin’s shoulder lightly after he pulls out and rolls off him. “Come on, you are supposed to say that I’m great. You are not too bad yourself.”

In exhilarating post-orgasm emptiness, he can feel Merlin’s sperm dribble down his thigh. 

“Also, I was right, my legs do look most becoming on your shoulders,” he says groggily, reaching for Merlin.

“I’m not into hugging,” Merlin says preemptively, “it is uncomfortable, we need sleep.”

Harry nods. Hence, this is how they meet the dawn: their hips touch slightly. They both pretend to sleep, without much conviction. They both are smiling. Eventually, Merlin reaches out and squeezes Harry's hand.

 

the end


End file.
